Rainy Days
by Cardiac Arrest
Summary: The Avengers would like to say that they spend their days the same. Every day is just like every other. There is nothing particularly special about any particular sort of weather day. But they are Earth's mightiest heroes. And the title weighs on them all.
1. Thor

**A/N:** I'm listening to a wonderful rain generator. And it got me thinking (mostly about Loki, let's not lie). I can picture so easily what each of the Avengers (and some other characters) would do on rainy days when the weight of their roles as "Earth's mightiest heroes" hits them hardest. And, no, it isn't the sad, mellow music that I'm listening to that's gotten me in a writing mood. It's the rain. And the image of Loki burning in my brain. That, by God, I'm going to save until the _very end_ of this mother to write. Because I need some self-control when it comes to the god of lies. This is very quickly turning into a very long rant that will take up more space than the story. So, without furher ado, here it is.

_**Rainy Days**_

* * *

_**Thor**_

As much as it pains him to admit it, rain reminds him of his lost brother. If asked about the comparison, he would explain that Loki always shined the brightest in the gloom of a rainy day. His younger brother became the sun on those days, radiating a warmth that never existed on any other day. He had a joy that couldn't be rivaled. And Thor coveted those days because he wanted nothing more for his brother than to see him so happy.

Without Loki, rainy days began to weigh heavily on his heart. He would think too long on things that used to be, or could have been. He found himself slowly drifting into an uncharacteristic sadness on the days when the sky was gray and crying. Sometimes, he even found himself crying with it.

Until he met Jane.

With Jane Foster, Thor found his light again because Jane loved rainy days just as much as Loki had. She glowed just as brightly and smiled even more. On rainy days, Jane threw herself into her research with more vigor than Thor had seen in Volstagg, throwing his-self into a feast. On rainy days, Jane Foster was simply more _alive_. And that was the exact same way Loki had been in their youth.

It was those days that Thor chose to spend with Jane more than any other. No matter the date, if it was raining, Thor was with Jane. Most days, that meant sitting on a stool in Jane's lab, watching her work. Often, mellow music played softly, only just loud enough to be heard over the gentle patter of the rain.

When the rain was too hard and interfered with Jane's work, they would sit, curled up on a wide suede sofa, and listen to the same mellow music. They would whisper stories about their childhoods, laugh gently together. And Thor, whose only volume on any normal day was sonic boom, was quiet and light as the flutter of a butterfly's wings. Because he couldn't, for the life of him, bear to disrupt the peace that was between them. He wouldn't distract from her vitality.

And so they lay together, murmuring stories in the gray light. And for all the world, Thor could not think of one thing that filled him with more joy than lying on that sofa on those tranquil days.


	2. Steve

**A/N:** So, I figured out that I can add chapters on here by editing old docs. :D On mobile. So, I'm gifting you with another chapter! Sorry this took so long. I'm really bad at writing right now. I just haven't had many ideas. Though, I do have the next chapter mostly written. So, I want you guys to tell me who you want after Tony. Most popular character gets it! Anyway, enjoy!

**_Steve_**

* * *

It was nearly five hundred miles from the Avengers' temporary headquarters in Stark Tower to the family cemetery where Agent Margaret Carter was buried. At first, he made the trip. Every rainy day he got, Steve Rogers mounted his motorcycle and drove the seven hours to visit her. And, at first, no one minded. But, after a while, Fury began to complain. And when Fury complains, you correct the problem.

So, for months, Steve stopped making his rainy day pilgrimage to Virginia. And for months, Steve was miserable. Instead to riding all day, he ran. He ran laps around Central Park. For days.

After six months of Steve's depression, Tony, Clint, Thor, and Bruce put their heads and resources together to build a miniature memorial to Peggy and Bucky in the greenhouse. Tony even installed an irrigation system in the ceiling that JARVIS synced to the weather patterns. Thus, when it rained outside, it rained inside.

Steve spent many rainy days in the greenhouse, getting soaked to the bone and talking to his best friend and the love of his life. He sat for hours, until water filled his shoes and his hands wrinkled. Many times, it was only the sun falling beneath the horizon that drove him up to his rooms.

No one bothered Steve on those days. And he always walked away from it happier.


	3. Tony

**A/N: **I demand your input! I'm holding the next chapter (which I haven't started yet because you guys won't talk to me) hostage until I get some sort of feedback! xD On a less hostile note, I'm really proud of this chapter. Mostly because it's Tony's and I love Tony. . Oh! and happy 4th! For all of the Americans out there. I'm a bit late, but there ya go. Anyway, enjoy. I still need to know whose chapter you guys want next. If you don't tell me, It's a toss-up among Clint, Natasha, and Bruce. I'll have my little brother pick.

**Tony**

* * *

Truth be told, rainy days don't affect Tony much. Truth be told, he usually sleeps through them. Either he can't or won't lift a finger for work and just sleeps.

It's when rainy days fade into stormy nights that Tony's bothered. It's those nights, when thunder claps in the dark and lightning flashes across the jet-black sky, when Tony wants...no, _needs _company. Whether than meant someone he knew or some ditsy girl from some random bar didn't matter. He always found someone.

On occasion, that someone was Pepper. She'd curl up on one of the many black leather sofas with him and they'd sit in silence for hours. She'd run her fingers through his hair and comment on how long it was getting. He'd huff out a laugh then not say a word, just enjoying the company. She was so much more than his assistant. She was more than his friend. He didn't know what to call her, but she was a blessing to him.

Sometimes the someone was Steve. They'd sit and chat, muttering in the dark. Lightning flashed across both of their faces, both of them haunted by ghosts of their pasts. They didn't talk much beyond idle chat. They didn't need to. They each knew what had happened to the other. They didn't need to ask, to revisit it. So they sat. One would lay down, head resting near the other, and they'd sleep. And that was fine. They didn't question it. They didn't care. So long as they didn't have to be alone.

Most of the time, Tony would venture up to the labs and would find Bruce. The doctor always had music on of some sort, taking advantage of the stereo systems Tony had installed everywhere. As if knowing he'd come, when Tony would enter Bruce would grunt a greeting, never looking up from his work. With Bruce, Tony didn't need to talk. There was no chat, no banter, just comfortable silence. Bruce would work and Tony would watch. Sometimes he'd thumb through Bruce's notes, ever curious as to what the doctor was working on.

Some nights, when he was feeling especially low, Tony Stark would have his AI call down to the prison cells. Within seconds, a whirl of green smoke would deposit a serene Norse god, kneeling, in the center of the room. He would rise, jet black hair falling around his pale face, green eyes glowing with magic. He would silently make his way to fold himself onto the couch with the shorter man, and would lay with his head resting on Tony's knee.

These two lost and broken men would talk for hours, taking turns asking questions. They'd talk about their past lives, parents, past lovers, old friends. Tony would inquire about the inner working of the universe. Loki would ask about the inner workings of Tony. They talked about Asgard and New York, Odin and Howard, and even the branches of Yggdrasil. The well of topics they explored never ran dry.

And Tony liked it that way. It distracted him from the demons of that particular day. He even began to look forward to those nights on his couch with the God's head in his lap. After months of calling the god to him, it became a habit of Loki's to appear on Tony's couch during storms sometimes the mortal would be there and sometimes not. But he always waited. And Tony always sat with him, even if they didn't feel like talking. Because it was better to have someone there to chase away the nightmares than to sleep through them alone.


	4. Bruce

**A/N:** Well, with a resounding one review and one vote, here is Bruce's chapter. Thank you, **Dark Goddess of Shadows, **for your input! This one was written at six in the morning especially for you!

**_Bruce_**

* * *

Let it not be said that Bruce Banner is afraid of nothing. He is, in fact, afraid of a great many things. However, rain is not one of those great many things. Therefore, Bruce Banner enjoys taking walks on days when everyone else is rushing about to get in out of the wet.

Something about the constant rhythm of the droplets pattering on the concrete and asphalt, Bruce found soothing. He found it so soothing, in fact, that listening to it and the sounds of the cars rushing by in the busy New York streets was one time when Bruce could honestly say that he wasn't angry. But that did frighten him. And, at that point, he fled back to his lab and immersed himself in his work.

Usually it was some odd experiment that he excused himself with. Never, of course, would be admit that he'd been scared in from the rain by being calm. So, he examined his blood under the microscope, again. He poked and prodded at it, sighing in dismay when it would go a familiar green hue and break yet another slide. He jotted down notes on the time it took from when he drew it, or how calm he was when he took the blood. He took the temperature and humidity of the room to see if the transformation took longer in the cold, or in humid weather. Anything that could point him in the direction of repressing the _other guy_ more.

When rainy days faded and gave way to stormy nights, Bruce found his lab home to his teammate and friend, Tony Stark. He didn't know what demons brought Tony to the labs instead of to his bed or workshop, and Bruce didn't want to know. The other man sought companionship. And it just so happened that his companionship didn't require Bruce to take any attention off his work. For that, Bruce couldn't tell if he was grateful or remorseful. Because he enjoyed talking with Tony in the light of the day. Sharing ideas, or even explaining the finer points of a theory to the rest of the team with him. It was amazing to him what the mind of Tony Stark brought forth every day.

However, on those nights, Tony was different. He was quiet. He was reflective. It was on those nights when the man with a wit to match the God of Lies was absolutely silent. He examined Bruce's notes, surely seeing that all of his tests were in vain, but never saying a word. And for that, Bruce was grateful. After all, he didn't need Tony Stark to tell him what he already knew.

There was no keeping the Hulk down. No repressing it, no getting rid of it. He was a part of Bruce the same as Bruce was a part of himself. And that's what frightened Bruce Banner most of all.


	5. Clint

**A/N: **So...I got three people asking for Natasha next, or very soon. And I have to say, **scintillatingshards**, **lost-sentiments**, and **Miss America of the USA**, I am so sorry. So, so sorry. But, if I were to post Natasha's chapter here instead of Clint's, you wouldn't understand the context. I wrote Clint's first (On my phone, on a boat and then in a restaurant, no less.), and set up the context for the both of them. And you will have Natasha's chapter next, I promise you! Thank you so much for your reviews, I literally freak out getting every single one. You all made my day with your reviews. And I hope you don't completely hate me for holding out on you just one more time. To **Dark Goddess of Shadows**, I had to do it just one more time. I loved your reviews! So much! For me to get such an awesome reader as you is beyond anything I could ask for, just starting out. 3

Without further ado, I give you my would-be mentor:

**Clint**

* * *

All SHIELD posts were equipped with archery ranges. And, when Stark Tower became the temporary, unofficial Avengers headquarters, Tony had an archery range built in the upper floors. It was a hidden floor, not on any of the floor plans with no button of its own on the elevators. To get to it, one had to be in possession of one of six special codes that went into a keypad that pulled out of the wall beside the buttons of the elevators. Of course, that meant that anyone already inside the range could lock out anyone else. On gray days, when the sky opened up and rain fell in an unending torrent, that is exactly what Clint Barton did.

As an expert marksman and master assassin, he'd seen hundreds of thousands of faces, made even more kills. And he remembered every single one. As he pulled back his bow, eyes trained on the target, their faces flashed through his memory. And the children especially, the ones whose lives had only just begun before they'd gone so horribly wrong. He lamented their loss, knowing that someone loved them. But even more, someone had feared them.

The red-haired mutant girl whose own mother had begged for the hit, unable to stand the thought of her child's gift consuming them all.

_Thunk._

The boy with the tiger eyes whose second personality sent him on a killing spree through Moscow.

_Thunk._

The young Indian psychic whose dark hair had whipped around her golden face as he'd loosed the arrow.

_Thunk._

There had been clean kills, when he'd retrieved his arrow and gone home, unable to sleep that night. He'd always made sure that the children were clean. He knew he'd never be able to live with himself if they weren't.

Then there were the messy kills. The missions when he'd had to engage his target, or get too close for his own comfort. Those were the mob bosses, the drug lords, the tyrants, whose drones had to be taken out before the ugly deed was done.

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._

As he listened to the rain pounding against the nearly sound-proof walls, he dredged up those memories. With each arrow, he put another to rest. He couldn't get rid of them permanently. Those faces would remain with him until the day he died. But, as he ran out of rounds and Natasha finally broke into the room, he knew that for a little while longer, he'd be okay.


	6. Natasha

**A/N: **So...This has been sitting in my documents for a while, as I waited for a good time to post it. And I'm really hoping that now is it. I'm not quite finished with Loki's chapter yet, but it's already do much longer than all the others, it's pathetic. Id like to apologize in advance. Because I'm not sure this one is going to live up to the others. I had such a hard time writing Natasha because I know the least about her. I based Clint off of the fandom's interpretation of his personality and the little bit of him we see in _Thor _and in _The Avengers_. But with Natasha, you really see so little of her true personality in _Iron Man 2_ and _Avengers_ that I didn't know how to go about writing her. So, with that in mind, I hope you like it. I really do. And I'll try my hardest to get Loki's chapter finished and up soon.

**_Natasha_**

* * *

Agent Natasha Romanoff was not a sentimental person. Nor was she particularly afraid of many things. These were things that, before meeting Clint Barton, she was very sure of. However, when the archer put down his bow and recruited her for SHIELD, she felt those certainties slip.

The day that Loki possessed and kidnapped the Hawk began the worst few days of her life. Even with every effort focused on finding him, she felt more helpless than she ever had before. She'd hated it.

A year later and she still felt her certainty slip every time he disappeared and locked himself in his range. She felt herself sink back into the panic of losing him. The despair she felt that day, sitting in the helicarrier, helpless as she watched Loki pull him around on strings of electric blue. And as she slipped back into that day, she found the smallest corner she could curl herself into and she sat. She sat for as long as it took for her heart to slow and her breath to come evenly. Curled in on herself, Natasha reminded herself that she wasn't back in that day. That Clint was in that very building.

But so was Loki. Deep within the basement levels on Stark Tower, he sat, just as she sat. In a holding cell. Despite knowing the difference between the circumstances, she still felt her blood turn to fire in her veins just thinking about the presence of the one who stole away her...What was he to her?

What was Clint Barton to her?

When she hit that question, Natasha sat up. Her breathing evened and her heart stilled. Fire still washed through her veins, but it was of a different sort. Not of panic, but of frustration. Because, really, what was he to her? She loved him, she supposed. But love takes many forms, yes?

As she pondered that question, she rounded up the codes for the week from Stark, determined that she would break into the range yet again. She took them back to her room and pondered. She didn't need the codes, of course. She already knew the override key. But she could make a show of cracking it.

By the time she'd bored herself with the codes, the sun was setting. Natasha made her way to the elevator, slowly, making sure that Clint's quivers had been exhausted. She entered the override key to the hidden floor in the keypad and waited as the elevator dropped the three and a half floors to the range. As the chime sounded over the speaker system, the keypad appeared again, JARVIS prompting her to enter the key again.

When the doors finally opened, Clint sat on a table, knees folded up to his chest. She made her way over to him, sitting beside him and wrapping an arm around his hunched shoulders. And as the sky grew darker and darker, they watched together as the rain pattered against the windows.**  
**


	7. Loki

**A/N: **This is probably the end of the line for us, guys. I want you to know that I've thoroughly enjoyed receiving everyone's feedback and I hope you all enjoyed everyone's individual tales. As promised, here is a special bonus. It took me a whopping two hours to put together the bulk of this story, then a whopping two weeks to tie up the loose ends. I still don't feel 100% satisfied with the way it ends, but I'm a writer. I'll never be 100% satisfied with my work. If you feel like, leave me some ideas for another fic. I'm eager to keep moving forward. Much love, Daph.

**_Loki_**

* * *

For a very long time, rain was Loki's absolute favorite weather. Colors seemed brighter, air was crisper, his senses were completely and utterly _alive_. Nothing could compare to the unbridled joy he felt as the water puddled in the streets splashed under his boots, or the way the cool drops felt as they slid through his dark hair. He could never have placed it, but something about those days felt right.

Frigga would often scold him, desperately trying to hide a smile as she did, for tracking mud through the palace. When he wasn't coming in covered in mud, she would tell him that he'd catch cold running around in the rain (though he never caught cold and thought nothing of it). She tried everything in her power to keep him from spending all of those dreary days outside. But she never could.

Once he was old enough to ride, he would go out and saddle his horse, taking the giant black stallion out to gallop through the fields for hours on end. After they returned from those romps, they were a sight to behold. Steam rose from the stallion's neck and hindquarters, muscles quivering. The young prince would be shivering as well, his clothes stuck to him and his armor dripping. Draping a towel over his hair, he'd return the horse to his stall (and the saddle to its rack) to give him a good rub-down and brush. He'd then return to the palace, a wide smile on his face.

But those days were long gone. Now he sat in a cell, day in and day out. It was comfortable, more a set of bedchambers with the door locked from the outside than a prison cell, but he was still a prisoner. His only company was the AI called JARVIS, and occasionally his adoptive brother, trying once again to get him to return to the way things had been ages before.

When heavy drops fell against his windows, he would curl up in the window seat with a large, leather-bound tome. It was one he'd read a hundred times, but he never tired of the stories it held. They were the stories of his childhood. The adventures he and Thor had shared. The battles they'd fought together. The mischief he'd gotten into, both alone and with accomplices. He'd never be able to go back to those times, no matter how much Thor begged and pleaded him to. There was too much betrayal and too much blood on his hands.

So he sat, and read, and lamented the best days of his life gone by.

Those days, the dreary ones filled with rain, were the ones when Thor would never bother him. He'd found something else to amuse him on those days. And Loki was perfectly fine with that. He was fine with sitting alone, reading, thinking about the days of old.

But sometimes...Sometimes he wasn't fine with it. Sometimes, he didn't want to sit alone and think about things that were and could never be again. He couldn't ruminate over old tales without the introduction of anything new. He was the God of Lies, of Mischief. He thrived on gleaning new information from others by the mean of his own wit. He longed for it so heavily after the first six months in the cell that it became a physical ache, digging at his core until he could no longer bear it.

He began by visiting Bruce Banner's lab, watching in the shadows as the scientist ran experiments on his own volatile blood. It was riveting, fascinating. For a while. But he grew bored of the silence, of not quite understanding the full thought process of the scientist.

He didn't dare approach Banner on those trips. The mortal man would surely raise the alarm and have him thrown in a real prison cell, deep in the bowels of Stark's monument to himself. And Loki, as easily as he could escape it, did not want his current lodgings taken from him. His plush, king-sized bed was much more comfortable than the cots the cells held, and was only reluctantly given to him at Thor's urging.

No, Loki merely trudged through the boredom, the monotony. And for a while, it worked. Banner discovered something new: the cure to some rare form of radiation poisoning, or a way to treat some ever-changing strain of a virus. But never anything of relevance to what the man searched in vain for. His failure was so often that Loki began to pity the mortal.

Until a call in the middle of a stormy night, a sleepless one for more than just the god, shook him from his rainy day traditions.

The initial, awkward round of questions that he and Tony Stark exchanged puzzled him. They spoke of simple, general things. JARVIS's circuitry and general programming, the development of new elements and synthetic materials from them, and the movement of the stars were among the many topics they covered. But, as time went on, and the two men began to see that neither was going to share the information they exchanged with the others, they began to speak of things a bit closer to themselves.

One particularly stormy night, Loki summoned his volume of childhood stories and shared them. It was a quieter night, with Stark silent as Loki read from the ancient volume, adding his own commentary where he deemed it necessary.

Tony Stark never said a word. If he had objections to the things that Loki had done (or things that had been done to him), he kept them to himself. He understood that the methods used in the rest of the nine realms were methods that weren't necessarily shared on Earth. The experiences he'd had shaped Loki, the same way the experiences Tony'd had shaped him.

Loki enjoyed the inventor's company. Loathe as he was to admit it, Tony's company was sometimes much needed on those days when the heavens cried. On the nights that Loki went on his own, rather than waiting for a summons, Tony still sat and talked with him. Because if another creature knew what it meant to be alone, Tony Stark was that creature.


	8. Bonus

**A/N: **So...I wasn't planning on writing any more. I really wasn't. But, a request from **lost-sentiments **got me thinking. I was asked to write a Rainy Days chapter for none other than the top spy, Nick Fury. I wasn't sure how to do it. I had no earthly idea how to go about writing it. But I went yesterday to see _The Avengers _one more time. And last night, as I was winding down, I started writing. I put in a LOT of references to the movie, I guess hoping to emphasize the point that this man is utterly alone. So, **lost-sentiments**, this is for you, dear. I hope you like it.

_**Nick Fury**_

* * *

"Lost my one good eye."

It had been months since that day. How many, he didn't know off the top of his head. But it had been enough time that things were starting to change.

The Avengers, as they'd begun to call themselves, all decided to bunk in the newly renovated Stark Tower. It had become a temporary base of operations for them. Everyone had their own set of rooms and everyone was happy. At least, that's what Agent Barton had reported.

He'd seen them, though. On those days when they were so caught up in their own reflections that they hadn't bothered to check that no one was watching. He'd watched Thor whisk himself away to New Mexico when the forecast called for rain. He'd seen Captain Rogers take off on his motorcycle more times than he could count, off to Virginia. He watched Stark sleep the day away then talk away the night with any number of people, the most recent addition being none other than the god of mischief. He 'd watched Dr. Banner out on his walks, and again in the lab. He'd been able to connect to the floor's cameras and watch as Agent Barton made pincushions out of targets. Then he'd watched Agent Romanoff burst in and sit on a table with him, whispering something that the microphones couldn't quite pick up.

But no one was there to watch him on those days. He was the top spy, after all. His secrets had secrets.

And those secrets were all laid bare, exposed, like a nerve. If one only knew where to look.

He thought about Agent Coulson often. But more so on the days when everyone was feeling melancholy, on the days when the sky wept. He found himself pulling those worn, blood-stained trading cards from his desk drawer, sighing heavily as he did. The faded, vaguely sepia-toned cards all depicted a smiling soldier, dressed in a stars and stripes uniform.

Captain America was the hero that Phil Coulson grew up believing in. He was the hero that Phil Coulson dreamed about meeting all his life. Many other SHIELD operatives teased him for this "hero worship", but Fury never did.

On those rain-soaked days, he sat in his locked office and remembered. If anyone tried bothering him, his secretary sent them away. She had strict orders. Unless blood rained from the sky, she wasn't to allow anyone in. And she didn't.

And so he sat. In silence, other than the faint patter of rain on the windows. Sometimes he muttered to himself, trying to reason with himself that Coulson's sacrifice was necessary. That he'd died as a hero. But he was never successful.

Because not only had Agent Phil Coulson been his one good eye, Phil Coulson had been his compassion. Phil Coulson had been his conscience.

And Nick Fury would never forgive himself for destroying that.


End file.
